Fishing reports coming out of Montana waters have been tough to get, at least for me anyway. The reason reports are harder to obtain is most of the fishing in the rivers and lakes has been good so most folks are busy catching so they don’t have time to even pick up the phone. I just might be guilty of that too! I have been fishing as well and as I write this column I am also planning my next fishing trip.

Last week I made my second trip to Fort Peck this year, this time the destination was Hell Creek State Park. Jim Swanson from Polson and I made the trip over and it was good fishing. The walleye was on and it was a crawler bite behind bottom bouncers. We caught fish in 4 to 19 feet of water throughout the week. We ended up taking home our limit of nice 20-24 inch walleyes and when the walleye fishing slowed we pitched crank baits into rocky weedy shorelines and caught some nice northern pike and smallmouth bass. We weren’t the only ones that were catching fish. Brandt Hamernick and his girlfriend Tracy Powers from Missoula managed to catch some walleyes in the 30 inch range and Jim Johnson and Denny Peterson from Lincoln also had some good walleye fishing. The word is out on how good the fishing is on Fort Peck Reservoir. Most of the week the Hell Creek State Campground had over 100 units occupying their camp sites. That means there was probably close to 300 people fishing out of Hell Creek alone. With all those folks you can still find a spot secluded fish spot on the 134 mile reservoir. I also noticed that there were more folks fishing from surrounding states especially Wyoming and North Dakota. The Montana Walleye Governors Cup which is being held out of the Fort Peck Dam area on July 10-11 already has 165 teams entered. The event which is put on by the Glasgow Area of Chamber of Commerce originally hoped for 150 teams but now they are thinking it might reach 200 teams before July 1st. An earlier tourney, the Rock Creek Walleye Tourney had 95 teams compete this year which topped last year’s number by about 25 teams. The winning team in the Rock Creek tourney caught 40 pounds of walleye the first day and didn’t weigh a fish the second day but still won the tourney. As I have always said when the fishing is hot the anglers will come and they have discovered Fort Peck Reservoir.

I received a report out of Canyon Ferry Reservoir that the walleye fishing was fair to good on the south end. If the wind isn’t blowing try pulling crawler harnesses in about 8 and ½ feet of water that seems to be working the best. The fish seem to be just north of the mouth of where the Missouri River comes in the stained muddy water. The trout fishing on Canyon Ferry has also been good up by White Earth and Goose Bay.

Brandon Bretz from Missoula said that he went fishing on Placid Lake and did well on the kokanee salmon last Sunday.

(Written by the Captain)